Bottom of Main Street Haworth c1890- 1900
Beautiful view on the Church. Not many trees in that time.
c1910-20 pre Park
zaterdag 19 december 2015
donderdag 17 december 2015
The Bronte Society was formed 122 years ago today!
Opening of the Haworth Parsonage Museum
Even before Charlotte died in 1855 enthusiastic visitors were making their way to Haworth to spot the famous author around the village. Mr Brontë's Sunday afternoon congregations were sometimes swollen with sightseers, eager for a glimpse of his daughter, or, failing that, happy just hear her father preach.
Towards the end of the century, when cheaper editions of the novels appeared, and after Mrs Gaskell's 'Life of Charlotte Brontë' made popular the story of the three doomed and tragic sisters, interest in the Brontës boomed. Anyone who had known them was besieged with requests for anecdotes and souvenirs. Mr Brontë had died in 1861, at which point the Parsonage contents had been sold off and moved out. Many items had gone with Charlotte's husband Arthur Bell Nicholls to his new home in Ireland; others had been given to friends and servants as keepsakes. The sisters' manuscripts, letters and personal belongings began to appear in salerooms, and many fetched high prices on the American market.
In 1893 The Brontë Society was founded to organise a permanent home for these treasures, and to keep them together as a collection. The first Museum opened in 1895 above the Yorkshire Penny Bank on Haworth Main Street. The Society began to purchase Brontë treasures at auction, and many others were loaned or donated. By the following summer 10,000 visitors had passed through. In 1928 the Church put up for sale Haworth Parsonage at a price of £3000, and it was bought by Sir James Roberts, a Haworth-born wool merchant and lifetime Brontë Society member, who handed the Society the deeds. It was, of course, the perfect home for their collection.
The wealthy Philadelphia publisher Henry Houston Bonnell bequeathed to the Society his extensive collection of Brontë manuscripts, letters, first editions and personal effects, which arrived at the Museum upon his sudden death in 1926. From then on the Museum could boast the world's largest collection of Brontëana, and many subsequent bequests allowed them to bid successfully for Brontë items coming up for sale at auction. Today the Brontë Society is one of the world's oldest and most respected literary societies, with a worldwide membership of around 1500. bronte/bronte-society/history
From; bronte/bronte-society We are one of the oldest literary societies in the world, founded in 1893 and today we have a thriving worldwide membership. The Brontë Society is a charity and depends entirely on admissions and the generosity of members for its income. The Society is responsible for running the famous Brontë Parsonage Museum in the picturesque village of Haworth in West Yorkshire, once the home of the Brontë family and also for promoting the Brontës' literary legacy within contemporary society.
The Brontë collections at the Brontë Parsonage Museum are the largest and most important in the world and continue to inspire scholars, writers and artists. Our Contemporary Arts Programme includes literary events, exhibitions, artistic responses, a competition and festivals, and our lifelong learning programme enables us to reach students of all ages across the country.
Becoming a member of the Brontë Society supports our work especially as we approach the celebrations for the bicentenaries of Charlotte Brontë in 2016, Emily Brontë in 2018 and Anne Brontë in 2020. By joining today you will assist us maintain the legacy of this remarkable family whose novels remain as popular today as when they were first published in the first half of the nineteenth century. You can join online or when visiting the Brontë Parsonage Museum. members.bronte./Join-Online
woensdag 16 december 2015
Campaigners in fight to save Bronte landmark from threat of cash cuts
EVOCATIVE: The ruins of Wycoller Hall in the village of Wycoller, said to be the setting of Ferndean Manor in Charlotte Bronte’s novel Jane Eyre
AN EAST Lancashire landmark which inspired Charlotte Bronte is under threat – and a petition to support it has already been signed by more than 700 people. Wycoller Hall, on the outskirts of Colne, was the model for ‘Ferndean Manor’ in Bronte’s Jane Eyre – and the historic venue is the starting point for the Bronte Way which leads to the Parsonage Museum in nearby Haworth.
But the countryside service offered by Lancashire County Council is under threat, as part of the £262m cuts required over the next five years, which has sparked a wave of protest.
The Friends of Wycoller is behind the petition on the change.org website, citing the hall’s links with one of Bronte’s most memorable characters, Mr Rochester.
The petition reads: “‘Ferndean Manor’ is the centrepiece of the gorgeously romantic Wycoller hamlet, clustered around a stream at the heart of Wycoller Country Park. Its moody scenery and residents inspired the Bronte sisters.
Read more: lancashiretelegraph/Campaigners_in_fight_to_save_Bronte_landmark_from_threat_of_cash_cuts
How the moors changed my mind about the Brontës
Read everything of this article on: theguardian/moors-brontes-charlotte-emily-anne
I’ve just got back from a week’s filming in Haworth and its environs – its bleak, freezing, inhospitable, endlessly compelling environs – for a documentary about … yes, you guessed it: the Brontës. There were three of us presenting, each going in to bat for a different member of the family.
The novelist Helen Oyeyemi was Emily’s champion, the BBC stalwart Martha Kearney was Charlotte’s, and I was there to represent Anne. She’s the only Brontë sister I can really cope with. The others, with their Wuthering Heights and their Jane Eyres, are just … too much. T’Sturm und t’Drang are not my way, in life or in reading. Give me the quiet, forensic scrutiny of Agnes Grey, the eponymous heroine of Anne’s first book, based on her miserable experiences as a governess for two rich families full of semi-feral children. Or the slow, pitiless anatomising of the effects of alcoholism on a Victorian family, so accurate that The Tenant of Wildfell Hall could have been written yesterday.
I’ve just got back from a week’s filming in Haworth and its environs – its bleak, freezing, inhospitable, endlessly compelling environs – for a documentary about … yes, you guessed it: the Brontës. There were three of us presenting, each going in to bat for a different member of the family.
The novelist Helen Oyeyemi was Emily’s champion, the BBC stalwart Martha Kearney was Charlotte’s, and I was there to represent Anne. She’s the only Brontë sister I can really cope with. The others, with their Wuthering Heights and their Jane Eyres, are just … too much. T’Sturm und t’Drang are not my way, in life or in reading. Give me the quiet, forensic scrutiny of Agnes Grey, the eponymous heroine of Anne’s first book, based on her miserable experiences as a governess for two rich families full of semi-feral children. Or the slow, pitiless anatomising of the effects of alcoholism on a Victorian family, so accurate that The Tenant of Wildfell Hall could have been written yesterday.
maandag 14 december 2015
CHARLOTTE Brontë married her sweetheart
The event was filmed by BBC Bristol as part of a series due to be shown in 2016 to mark the 200th anniversary of Charlotte’s birth. Living Like A Brontë will be part of a year-long BBC season focusing on classic literature in a bid to get more people in the UK reading. During today’s ceremony Rebecca Yorke, the parsonage museum’s marketing officer, played bridesmaid Ellen Nussey, Charlotte Brontë’s best friend. She said: “The ceremony was really moving. The two people playing Charlotte and Arthur were really well cast and it felt very real, being in the Brontë Chapel. “When we were in the church we could hear the rain hammering down, so it was amazing that so many people were outside to greet us.
“I’d had lots of inquiries so I knew a lot of people were interested in going. We had responses from people all over the world.” Ann Dinsdale, a Brontë historian and collections manager at the parsonage museum, said she was surprised how touching the event was. She said: “We spent a week with a film crew around Haworth to got used to them, but it was quite moving to see the actual ceremony. Mrs Dinsdale said the replica dress was created from descriptions of the actual dress and the design of the real wedding bonnet and veil from the museum’s collection. She added: “The real dress didn’t survive. Arthur Bell Nicholls kept it for many years but left instructions that it should be burned after his death. Charlotte married Arthur Bell Nicholls after publication of her novel Jane Eyre and the death of sisters Anne and Emily. Filming is being carried out with support from staff at the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth. Living Like a Brontë will be screened next spring as two 60-minute episodes. Journalist and broadcaster, Martha Kearney; columnist and author, Lucy Mangan; and novelist, Helen Oyeyemi, are travelling to the parsonage, home of the Brontë sisters, to discover the stories behind their classic novels Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey. A BBC spokesman said: “With help from a range of experts, each presenter will explore one of the Brontës in detail.
“By re-living the sisters’ daily routines, visiting the key places in their world and immersing themselves in their letters and diaries, and through the sisters’ interactions with each other, they’ll discover what it was that served as their sources of inspiration.” The BBC Get Reading season will also include Brontës At The BBC, showcasing excerpts from the many TV adaptations of Brontë works, and To Walk Invisible, a new drama about the Brontë sisters written by Last Tango In Halifax and Happy Valley creator, Sally Wainwright. thetelegraphandargus
The wedding took place at eight o’clock in the morning, but one important man was not to be there. At the last moment Patrick said that he felt too ill to attend, although we’ll never know if this was true or if he was still harbouring some resentment at the marriage itself. Margaret Wooler stepped into the breach and it was she who gave Charlotte away, with Reverend Morgan, Patrick’s friend who had baptised Charlotte, conducting the ceremony.Also present at the church were Joseph Grant, a friend of Nicholls, and his wife, Sutcliffe Sowden, the vicar of Hebden Bridge, the sexton John Brown and his daughter Martha, Joseph Redman, the parish clerk, and John Robinson, a local boy and former pupil of Charlotte’s. We can also assume that the by now aged and infirm Tabby Aykroyd would also have been there if she was well enough on the day. It was a low key affair, as Charlotte wanted, and they held a reception afterwards at the Sunday school building that lay between the church and the Parsonage. annebronte/the-wedding-of-charlotte-bronte
